Dear Santa Firaxis..

[Jon79]

A few very general thoughts about the game of the games .


First, I´d like to point out that it would be foolish from Firaxis if they would simplify the game, according no love to the Details . They really SHOULD include a lot of details (of course without unbalancing the game) in order not to commit such a loveless Civilization as Activision did . I do, indeed IMVHO believe, that some games qualify as genuine art masterpieces, and in art, it IS this certain "presque rien" of details that makes a masterpiece out of a work that would otherwise be nothing more but an occupationnal therapy .

Also, very generally, and probably in the same tone, I believe that most of (genuine) Civer´s want to have a possibly great freedom to develop their very own civ, just following the trend set by modern RPG´s (Gothic, Baldur´s Gate 2), or the excellent Hitman released by Eidos last Fall (a great game, I would even recommend to people who usually don´t play 3D Shooters) . You mean, it is almost the same as to request a lot details ? - well it is, but thought on the global level of the game development . Please : Free the enslaved Civers from a too monotone way of playing !! What we want isn´t a programm that remembers more a Desktop tool (functional, productive, professional), but rather a real G A M E, that is incredibly fun to play, and eternally re-playable (Chess..) . Don´t worry, it wouldn´t require so much micromanagement, and yes, it should stay easy to learn, but still let the player develop a love to his own Civ, which is almost impossible in the cold CTP .

About the learning of the game, I´d just like to point out : it took me about 6 month to learn how to play (with all the necessary finesse) a good Civilization game in 1991 - and it was incredibly fun . I would even go as far to say that when there´s nothing more to learn from a game, it becomes boring, and u quit playing it . Just as Oscar Wilde once said : "only people who perfectly know each other have nothing left to tell" (freely translated from german, sorry if I slaughtered the bon mot) .

Finally, I´d say that those details as "flourishing landscapes" give the game a soul, which is also nescessary to arise this famous "epic feeeling", that we never want to miss again in future CivX .


PS. Please show clemency for my poor english - or blame Hollywood for it (the main source of english-speaking culture in Germany) . Hope u understand what I meant somehow..

PPS. Don´t get offended if u´re CTP fans, it´s just my personal Civ Vet´ opinion - I don´t believe my truth is the same for everybody..

PPPS. When I write "we", I mean my Civin´ fellas over here in Aken, Germany..

[JosefGiven]

Hi Dan, (fawn, lick) Wise words! (sycophantic grin) Please, though, what ever you do, DON'T make Civ 3 any LESS complex than Civ 2. By all means hone the concepts that are there already, but please don't scrap any of the existing 'institutions' that are already part of the game, and the whole Civilization culture.

BTW, what you have given us on the Firaxis site has put my mind at ease on many issues.

[DaveV]

quote: Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS on 03-13-2001 12:11 PM I'm interested to hear what others think of the issue of making a game more complex and if you feel that complexity in some ways makes a game LESS fun.

I agree, and cite my old scapegoat, the trade system in Civ 2. It sounds like a good idea: your city supplies a commodity, you get a bonus if another city demands it. But the implementation is so clunky and frustrating that I think it's definitely the weak point of the game. Railroad Tycoon had something very similar, where one city would demand a certain commodity. That city would offer a steadily decreasing bonus for delivery of that commodity; once you delivered it, another city might demand something else. I found that to be a fun feature - it was worth disrupting the normal delivery schedule to rush the demanded commodity, and the race against time added some excitement. In Civ 2, there's a bewildering array of demands and supplies that changes over time, and I find it frustrating (not to mention the micromanagement aspect of moving all your workers onto high-trade squares).

Conclusion: simple, one-city race in RRT was fun, complex multicity supply/demand matching in Civ 2 is a chore.

[Roman]

Dan, allow me to disagree on the complexity issue somewhat. Increased complexity can be manifested in a multitude of ways. Relevantly I will take Civ as an example. There are three approaches (of course, it is possible to have in between cases too, but mostly those categories should work):

1) You can increase the depth of national level management, adding extra functions to the governments, possibly introducing something along the lines of social engineering (ie. religion, values in the Civ context), etc. without increasing micromanagement at all (well you only increase it minutely, but it does not get out of hand as your empire grows). This can add much more depth and complexity to the game without adding any of the tediousness you describe in your final SMAC turns.

2) It is possible to add say extra statistics to units or expand on other existing concepts in a similar fashion. Doing this also increases complexity (or depth as I prefer to call it), but does not actually leave you with extra units to move, or more cities to manage. It is an enhancement that does not require any active involvement from the player other than thinking about how to use his units/cities/resources/whatever based on their new, more detailed characteristics, which surely is a good thing.

3) The final approach to increasing complexity is to add entirely new concepts (read objects) that need management on the local level. This would include adding units (if civ didn't have them previously, which it obviously did), or creating a full blown resource based production system. While in the above two approaches benefits of more complexity almost always outweigh the costs, as realism goes hand in hand with gameplay, in this case much more thought is required. Here questions should be asked whether the realism added does not conflict with the fun value of the game, or if the same issue could not be tackled at a more global level to reduce micromanagement.

BTW: I am actually a fan of the resource idea, believing that in this case the extra realism justifies the complexity and adds extra strategic thinking and fun to the game.


Naturally, the answer ultimately depends on the audience you are trying to target, but I think the Civilization fan base is not detered by complexity and even considers learning the game a fun experience.

[raingoon]

quote: I'm interested to hear what others think of the issue of making a game more complex and if you feel that complexity in some ways makes a game LESS fun.

Dan,

I think a good game is where I can understand the choices I have to make in the end just as easily as I understood the choices I was forced to make in the beginning. A game can be detailed, deep, complex, whatever -- so long as in the end it's as clear as it was in the beginning.

It's like the marina analogy. In Civ, choices are like boats and micromanagement is the tide -- when the tide comes in, the boats should float on top just as easily as when the tide was out. If they get swamped, it's because the choices either weren't clear enough, or compelling, or they stayed fixed on micro issues when the game was fast becoming a macro experience.

So to answer your question, I think complexity can make a game MORE fun, so long as that complexity never swamps your understanding of the choices you have to make. I wonder if in those SMAC games, the ones where you found it feeling tedious in the end, if you had a sense that your boat was not rising with the tide of micromanagement. As if the choices you were being forced to make were not evolving along with the massive swell of units. You were still making low-tide choices at high-tide. I hope that in Civ 3, by the time I'm looking at massive swells of units, I'm able to think more macro (Armies, etc.), more like a nation state, rather than the city state that I perforce must be in the beginning.
[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited March 13, 2001).]

[John-SJ]

I like a game that is complex in it's subtlety rather than a game that is complex because there are 300 different stats to remember or 300 different units and city buildings that have to be managed.

An example of the subtle game would be chess. Only 6 "unit" types and 6 different moves on an incredibly simple map, but the variety of ways that units and groups of units can interact with other units or groups make chess probably the most incredibly subtle and complex games ever devised. True, chess is not for everyone but even those who master it spend a lifetime learning more from the game.

A feature of the game with 300 different units and buildings and stats seems to be that each of these objects interacts in a very limited set of ways with other objects, whereas in chess the number and complexity of interactions is seemingly limitless.

Civ II falls much closer to the chess model than the "300 building" model. Using a relatively small set of peices that interact in a wide variety of ways a very complex gaming environment was developed that was easy to learn and yet took years to master. (I'm still trying, but I'm slow. )

I would welcome an increase of complexity of the chess variety to whatever level it is taken. A small increase of the "300 unit" variety of complexity also wouldn't be bad but I hope that isn't overdone.

John-SJ

[John-SJ]

Just a thought on the Civ II trade complexity.

If, in the screen that comes up when a caravan was built that included the supply and demand screen, you could just click on a city that demanded the commodity you were supplying the caravan with and that sent it to the city, trade would have been incredibly simplified. (if the caravan was capable of providing it's own ocean transport this would work even for intercontinental trade)

Add a couple of simple controls so your caravans aren't destroyed all the time. Add a control that takes the caravan off auto-pilot if the caravans course this turn goes through an enemy ZOC. Add a resume feature so that once you have moved a caravan out of dangerous territory you can "resume" it's automatic trek to the demanding city. Finally, put the name of the destination city in the caravan's info window.

John-SJ

[airdrik]

quote: Originally posted by Jon79 on 03-13-2001 06:02 AM PS. Please show clemency for my poor english - or blame Hollywood for it (the main source of english-speaking culture in Germany) . Hope u understand what I meant somehow..

We understand as there are plenty of us who don't speak English as our first language.

quote: PPS. Don´t get offended if u´re CTP fans, it´s just my personal Civ Vet´ opinion - I don´t believe my truth is the same for everybody..

There are no CTP fans here, they are all in the CTP forums or at home playing CTP (Not that there are that many of them anyway).

quote: PPPS. When I write "we", I mean my Civin´ fellas over here in Aken, Germany..

We know the feeling.

Welcome to the Apolyton forums, Jon79

You have some good ideas there and I'm sure they will be implemented (it isn't hard to do when they are already mostly in the game already).

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

quote: Originally posted by Jon79 on 03-13-2001 06:02 AM A few very general thoughts about the game of the games . First, I´d like to point out that it would be foolish from Firaxis if they would simplify the game, according no love to the Details . They really SHOULD include a lot of details (of course without unbalancing the game) in order not to commit such a loveless Civilization as Activision did . I do, indeed IMVHO believe, that some games qualify as genuine art masterpieces, and in art, it IS this certain "presque rien" of details that makes a masterpiece out of a work that would otherwise be nothing more but an occupationnal therapy . Also, very generally, and probably in the same tone, I believe that most of (genuine) Civer´s want to have a possibly great freedom to develop their very own civ, just following the trend set by modern RPG´s (Gothic, Baldur´s Gate 2), or the excellent Hitman released by Eidos last Fall (a great game, I would even recommend to people who usually don´t play 3D Shooters) . You mean, it is almost the same as to request a lot details ? - well it is, but thought on the global level of the game development . Please : Free the enslaved Civers from a too monotone way of playing !! What we want isn´t a programm that remembers more a Desktop tool (functional, productive, professional), but rather a real G A M E, that is incredibly fun to play, and eternally re-playable (Chess..) . Don´t worry, it wouldn´t require so much micromanagement, and yes, it should stay easy to learn, but still let the player develop a love to his own Civ, which is almost impossible in the cold CTP . About the learning of the game, I´d just like to point out : it took me about 6 month to learn how to play (with all the necessary finesse) a good Civilization game in 1991 - and it was incredibly fun . I would even go as far to say that when there´s nothing more to learn from a game, it becomes boring, and u quit playing it . Just as Oscar Wilde once said : "only people who perfectly know each other have nothing left to tell" (freely translated from german, sorry if I slaughtered the bon mot) . Finally, I´d say that those details as "flourishing landscapes" give the game a soul, which is also nescessary to arise this famous "epic feeeling", that we never want to miss again in future CivX . PS. Please show clemency for my poor english - or blame Hollywood for it (the main source of english-speaking culture in Germany) . Hope u understand what I meant somehow.. PPS. Don´t get offended if u´re CTP fans, it´s just my personal Civ Vet´ opinion - I don´t believe my truth is the same for everybody.. PPPS. When I write "we", I mean my Civin´ fellas over here in Aken, Germany..

Speaking strictly for *myself* (and please note that what I am about to say implies NOTHING about the outcome of Civ III), I would like to state a few brazen (and wholly personal) opinions:

1) A lot of people seem to equate a more complex game with a better game. Personally speaking, I just can't agree (and I think most game developers would agree on this as well). Complexity for the sake of complexity does not a fun game make. Sid himself has said in interviews (the old Gamespot piece is a classic example) that when fun and realism clash, fun should take precedence.

A perfect example of a game I found so complex I couldn't even play is Star Wars: Rebellion. I had such high hopes for this game, I was thinking "It's Master of Orion with Star Wars characters".. but after sinking about a week into the game, I was just left utterly puzzled about what was going on. Now, granted, the interface was utterly counter-intuitive and that had a lot to do with it, but it was so complex that it just wasn't fun.

2) I think one of the reasons the Civ series was, is, and continues to be fun is the hard choices you have to make. From the minute you're put on the map, do you just build a city where you are or spend precious early turns trying to find a better location for your first city? How many turns are you willing to spend? You could spend 20 turns and then find the best location, smack dab on a river, with wheat and cattle all around, but then perhaps you get massacred by another civ that spent those turns building attack units. There isn't a whole lot of inherent complexity in the scenario I just described, but it is fun because there is a tradeoff and a decision to be made. And the game just builds and builds on top of this kind of tradeoff.

3) I know this topic has become a sort of a holy war among the Civ community, but with greater complexity comes greater micromanagement. Some people like to control every aspect of their cities, others would love to set an overall strategic goal and have the AI do all the grunt work. At least as I see it, I wonder at what point adding complexity to a game makes it stop being fun and start being work. I personally ran into this late in games of SMAC where I started to lose the "just another turn" feeling because each turn meant "oh god, it's gonna take me 15 minutes just to move my units around, and THEN I still need to check on all my cities". At a certain point I think it becomes tedious.

These are just some random thoughts of mine after reading this thread. I'm interested to hear what others think of the issue of making a game more complex and if you feel that complexity in some ways makes a game LESS fun.

Dan

[Nemo]

quote: At least as I see it, I wonder at what point adding complexity to a game makes it stop being fun and start being work. I personally ran into this late in games of SMAC where I started to lose the "just another turn" feeling because each turn meant "oh god, it's gonna take me 15 minutes just to move my units around, and THEN I still need to check on all my cities". At a certain point I think it becomes tedious.

I have run into this exact feeling with some of the civ games as well. (more so with CTP series than with Civ series, by far). All I ask is that this same "oh no! another turn " syndrome exists to a lesser extent, or preferably none at all. However, i dont think that it is so much of a complexity issue, but maybe more of a management issue.

in Civ II i noticed this boardom when i was at peace late in teh game, and only had to manage my cities. to solve this, i went to war with someone. and the AI was sometimes a worthy adversary. also, there was always that one AI that was a war machine, some one always hard to battle, and someone always trying to take you over. once this civ was killed it would often take much of the challange away, both when striving for a peaceful, and bloodlust endng. to keep the game lively, i always tried to keep them around and give them some war techs if they got too far behind, just to keep the game interesting. it was always hard to make peace with them, and always hard to defeat in war.

to move peices around quickly, and efficiently in the later stages of teh game, i opted to use the "go" option, BUT the units would always stop if they were in the ZOC of an enemy. this put a great latency on each turn, making it very tedius and boring to move the peices. maybe have a mode option if you right click on a stack of units to do one of the folowing when using waypoints, or the "go" command:
1) stop when near enemy ZOC (as it currently is, i believe)
2) continue on shortest path regardless of enemy
3) stay out of enemy way regardless of how long it takes to get to destination.
this way you dont have to keep moving the same unit to the same spot >1 time per turn. (e.g. if you have 15 units and each are on a "go" path and each run into 2 enemies aolong their path, then you now how to use "go" 45 times vs. the original 15 "go" commands - wow, what a drag it becomes)

also in civ I/II, all the needen city info was in one box. this box had the arrows to go from one city's info to the next city's info (at least in civ II anyway, i forget if this arrow was in civ I) this made it quick and easy to check each city every turn even in the stages where you had many cities, then there was always the govener option to have the AI manage the city, or build que (although, i am not a big fan of build ques)

i picture civ III like civ II, but with a major graphics overhaul, better diplomacy, and better AI as the major additions. then, maybe some extra balanced imcorperations of CTP like MAD or unconventional units, or some incorporations of SMAC like satalites or (under)water cities.

just remember K.I.S.S.

[Zanzin]

If Firaxis is listening (and I know you are, god bless you), John79 makes a valid point about "love" and Civ.

Simply, I loved Civ2. I can't describe it in words, unfotunately, but I can genuienly say I loved it.

I know you guys can't comment on the work of other companies, i.e. CTP by Activision, but I can, so I'm going to say. In many respects, CTP 1 and 2 were good games. But I didn't love them. Activision raped the civilization series, IMHO

So, basically, as John79 said...don't make Civ3 loveless. Civ2 had a special ingredient that only Sid seems to know. I'd like to see that special ingredient in Civ3 as well!

[Jon79]

(Thx 4 tha nice welcome, I´m really very pleased)

(Thx Zanzin, it´s nice to feel understood)


Well, at least, there´s one thing for sure - we all wan´t a Game, rather than yet another piece of Work.. But I´m not sure everybody is able to imagine two different games when talking of complexity and realism .


Talking about complexity, as John-SJ said, the best prove that a complex game can be kept simple is Chess. And as my fewness said : the thing that really counts is the freedom of decisions you can hit . Just like Chess . So, to be more concrete, Firaxis should give the possibility to choose between, say, developping a civ of traders and sailors, or for the same civ to become a sprawling Colonial Empire, but not both at the same time & at the same rate . I believe that it´s a question of timing - a player can´t do everything at the same time (limited by pop, eco, tech, diplo, contraints) . If the game would be balanced that way, you wouldn´t end up in endless micromanagement mess .

Since I know a lot of history fans around here, following example : the Russian empire developped as THE great continental power (btw taking over the control of the geopolitic Kernland), in a time all great (European) powers discovered and colonized oversea territories, which Russia couldn´t, in absence of a sufficient navy, while all pionneering was done in Asia - without navy . That means, the one didn´t exclude the other, but made it so secondary, that Russia couldn´t at the same time do both . (They even sold the few they had in America)
Here the contraint is mainly geographic . But it can also be a choice between two ways : Either your extend your empire, or you build up your civ on a Bunch of highly productive city states.

Somehow, this concept already exists in civ, when you do either send your settler build a new city, or build land improvements, to rise productivity . And that is the kind of choices I´d like to see more, cos I don´t think that it wouldn´t make a job out of the game since you could =>choose<= between different ways .

The trouble when the different paths of developpment are too short (not enough detailled), you can rapidly benefit of the advantages of each way . So the strategy always to build new colonists (settlers) after securing a newly founded city always leads to success, since when you got a huge empire, you´ve got top renderings in every way (Tech, Eco, Military..), except Happiness - And that´s unrealistic, which means not really fun to play for a lot of fans . Just look at China, and it´s negative : Japan. Ever tried to replay history, and choose Japan on real World map, and then acurately following history, only gettin´out of the Islands in late 19th ? With phalanxes ?(I exagerate)


So, when industrialization begins, the player should be able to choose: do I send all my starving proletarians in the colonies, or do I rather forge my nation out of Iron and Blood ?

Then the game is fascinating, because history wouldn´t be finished by 0 AD, when my Civ already has as many cities as all of my rival together.


Again, to summarize :

1. I neither want to feel at work when playing, the turns shouldn´t degenerate into 30min unit-moving orgies.

2. Complexity can be add without unbalancing the game, if a player is not able to use all the complexity in a single game (which btw, motivates to replay, and rereplay, etc.)

3. Finally to add even more realism, I believe that it´s secret formula is Detail (ever seen blade runner, and it´s realistic Rep´s?), which again would´nt be unbalancing if handled as in 2.
You know, that vision of Civ Map which look a lill´bit more alive, with hamlets, smoking industries, etc.
But also the gameplay (again see 2.) is essential not to create another useless, boring civ clone.
And not to forget: the random part of game should be raised again (Civ1), of course enhanced, with an included accumulation algorithm for events like Earthquakes, etc.

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark on 03-14-2001 12:51 PM Therefore for a large portion of the Civ audience, making the game less realistic IS making it less fun - its not fun vs realism - the realism is part of the fun.

Precisely on the spot as far as I am concerned, Lord of the mark!!

[ASHBERY76]

I hope that civ3 doesnt turn out to be civ 2.5 or its maters of orion3 for me after ive finished with Europa universalis.

[lord of the mark]

Oy, dan such a topic to bring up!?!?! Fun and complexity and realism!!! Where to begin?

Let me agree that COMPLEXITY for its own sake is not desirable. Complexiy should be the handmaiden of fun AND realism. Agreed that too much complexity detracts from the game.

Complexity needs to be divided into complexity visible to the user and "background complexity" The first includes the factors that one must track to play the game at all, or to succeed on an easy level. the second includes additional complexities that one may skip until one reaches a high level. For example, i recently read a thread here about the specific lengths of time it takes a Civ2 engineer to perform certain tasks on different terrain types. This is a level of complexity that is there in the background, and which most players ignore except in a very general way - yet knowing the exact details could certainly be helpful in a diety level challenge.

Complexity does not equal realism. One could add complex features that are historically unrealistic - such items are even appropriae in sci fi or fantasy games. In an already complex history oriented game they are uncalled for IMHO.

It is not always necessary to be complex to be realistic. One may use an abstract system to give the Flavor of a historical situation. the political sysem in civ 2 is an excellent example - though fairly abstract, and certainly unrealstic as far as the details are concerned, it nicely illustrates key historical issues , particularly the interelationships of foreign and domestic politics - in civ 2 a land power with nearby rivals is far less likely to wind up with a "liberal" system then an isolated nautical power.

For some excellent examples of historical accuracy achieved with abstract, "unrealistic" mechanisms, in a far different context from Civ2, i suggest looking at the Gordon Farrell scenarios for Age of Empire, notably the Persian Wars campaigns. I will be happy to take another look at them for specific points, if you like, Dan.


OK, now that we've dealt with complexity, how about "fun" versus "realism"
Well yeah the games got to be fun. and yes sometimes that will mean a sacrifice of realism. and yes, for CIV, with its style and audience, realism should sometimes be sacrificed for fun. This is not a grognard war game. Nor is it Europa Universalis. OTOH it is also not a fantasy or sci-fi game. Nor is it a "fun game" in historical dress like AOE/AOK (certain user created scenarios for AOE excepted) It is a game that makes it possible to explore certain real and deep HISTORICAL issues in an abstract context. The Hegelian complexities in the tech tree, in the political model, etc are there, and they are there despite the unrealism of say the movement factors. Therefore for a large portion of the Civ audience, making the game less realistic IS making it less fun - its not fun vs realism - the realism is part of the fun.

Given all that, will there be tradeoffs - to be sure. How should those tradeoffs be resolved? with reason and consideration, of course. Do we need a 5 factor SE model? no. Do we need a complex religion model? no. OTOH - Should we add televengelists because it would be cool to have a unit that could siphon off money - er NO. Something that is "kewl" or adds balance, but has NO historical justification should be avoided. Ahistorical features shoudl be justified on grounds of playabilty or serious impacts on fun or balance. When a samll amount of fun is added at the cost of major loss of historical realism, it should be recalled that historical realism is part of fun.

Lord of the mark.